Preparing Fears

There is still no #Colour_Collective so a wee update on what’s to come over the next few months on the Fears website.

The preamble, I’m still in the process of selling my home with no end date in sight. Post sale, I’ll have 2-3 months of rented accommodation, or I’ll be at the missus family home. Not a suitable working environment and both will have, at best, my phones 3g internet with Scottish hills reception. A lot of my plans are on hold until I get the new house and some control over my creative setting.

Two things I want to release before I move. First, my next Skillshare course. How to turn a doodle into high-resolution digital graphics. No scanners required and the technique uses free software. I’ll offer the class free of charge for one week then set it to premium. A handy course for anyone that doodles that’d like a new social media avatar, blog banner or an interest in Threadless and Society 6. I use this method to make my book covers, art prints and Threadless tees.

Skillshare Premium gets you access to the entire website for as little as $0.99, not just my lessons. It just means I get a few pennies from students.

The second thing I’d love to get released is the next book, Grey Moon. Currently waiting on Amazon for that. Not sure when I’m going to get the first copy of the book, and I need a week or two to check it over a hundred times before release.

You may have also noticed a minor drop in posting frequency. I’m currently spending as much time as I can on building a library of videos on my laptop so I don’t need to do them in the 2-3 months where I will have no privacy. At one per day, I need between 90 and 120 videos to fully cover me for three months. For anyone who has ever done video creation, you know how much time that takes.

Semi-related, after this week’s YouTube announcement, I am not entirely keen on uploading to YouTube long term. I may need to take a leaf out of Miles & Crawford’s book and start uploading to audio/podcast sites like Podbean and Soundcloud. I would have never had a chance of YouTube monetisation myself. My videos are too short to get views counted correctly. It’s not just WordPress that can’t do stats right. But after all the drama of Logan the week before, YouTube responded by stepping on the small YouTuber while raising up the big’uns like Logan. I always felt YouTube represented an idea that anyone could have a go. Everyone can still have a go, but YouTube will make it hard for you unless you make it big. Not an ideology I like.

ComicsExplained has a trending video on why he’s looking at Patreon and other options. I, unfortunately, do not read comics anymore, except for the odd webcomic. Certainly nothing mainstream. But what he says about YouTubes decision reflects how I feel about the situation.

The last thing in this update is my schedule for the next three months and beyond.

Until I have my new house, possibly three months away, I’ll be dropping to one story per day and one blog post per week. I hope to keep roughly on this schedule.

Once I have moved, I can return to the busier schedule with my posts returning to the same level as the last few months. Seven new stories. Three old stories with new videos. One big update. One art/work in progress post. One long-form story. One blog on blogging or creativity. All of that, every week. Soooo many puns and punchlines!

Thank you very much, everyone, for sticking with me. You’re an awesome rabble of groaning, pun-loving and horror laughing oddballs.

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37 Comments

I think he has a lot of valid points… Also think from everything that I have heard that you shouldn’t give up on you tube either… I think you already have a solid base… On the Phillip Defranco Show… he was pointing out that even if you reach the new bench mark you’d only make around $4 a month… Where if you had 800 subs and only 1% of them gave you a dollar on Patreon…. you’d double your monthly income… Translate that to shirts and merch… your cash in flow grows even more…. but I get that with the new restrictions… it will be harder to get to that 800 subs…. I also heard that this has nothing to do with Logan Paul… and that this was going to happen either way… Working in a corporation I can kind of see this as true… 5 years ago my job was saying we are going to do this or that…. Still waiting and it is going to happen any month now…. yeah okay… I don’t even listen to them anymore… just nod my head and say that sounds cool… bureaucracies move at a different pace than real life… Still messed up… I think there will be more competition coming their way and maybe that’s a driving force behind this because YouTube has also never turned a profit… Google has sure… but in the big picture YouTube is in the same boat as the small creators… Only Mommy and Daddy have a whole lot of money….

I think there’s the problem that this a straw that broke the camels back about this. The relentless demonetization and banning of channels that occurs. Some of ComicsExplained woes and IHateEverythings past problems put me off investing to much time into such a random platform. The outright bans for ambiguous reasons and a dire appeals process are why I put up with comments/stats/exposure issues that come with a self-hosted WordPress blog over running the Fears on wordpress.com. This recent change has adjusted my plans for time spent. Maybe I’d be better working on another platform in tandem to YouTube. Especially when each of my videos takes up to 30 minutes each per day to create and upload. What am I getting for that 30 minutes per day? What happens if YouTube hits me with the banhammer and I lose the lot?

YouTube not making money is also a bit of a spin. YouTube doesn’t make a profit in the same way Facebook doesn’t (or didn’t) make a profit. With the right spin, Facebook didn’t make a profit until 2012’ish? The parent company earns millions/billions from the business model, just not the business itself.

My original long-term plan was to build a subscribership then use end cards to link to merch and patreon. It’s still in my mind, but now it’s less of a focus and I’ll be looking at the alternatives.

I hear what you are saying… I just don’t think you should see it as a set back to your plans… I think your plan is much better than the one they are taking away… Your options are much better too it seems…

It seemed like I was sticking up for YouTube but I wasn’t… It is shitty… a dollar earned is a dollar earned… we all work hard for and deserve it for the work that we do… and it is work… I run into the same thing with writing… My novel wasn’t completed in a year… I didn’t spend ten minutes slapping it together… I’ve made six dollars… best six dollars I’ve ever earned… even thinking about it makes me happy… makes me feel like I got something for all that work… so I get it… It isn’t fair to those of us who work our asses off…

It is a slap in the face… Though I do think this slap will wake us up and we will find away to succeed… the dream is still there… the heart and soul is still there… this will only make us stronger… “How bad do you want it”… simple slogan but effective…

haha… Mr. Negative over here trying to find a positive to this whole shitty situation… Literally just got done writing a post about how shitty the world is and how I should give up… Bury my head in the sand and hope for a quick death…

Thanks for this post. I wasn’t aware about the YouTube change (then again there’s a lot I’m not aware of 😀 ). I was planning on eventually a video blog on YouTube of art and painting instruction with a bit of sarcasm and hilarity thrown in of course! But now, hell, I’m not even going to take the time. Venture into murky waters. At night. Without a lighthouse. Or flashlight! Screw that. So, googling Patreon now lol.

Ah, now, I’m not saying everyone should abandon YouTube. Like I said in my post, monetization was always going to be an issue for me. The exact numbers are not published, but people need to watch a video for about a minute for you to get a view. I need 4,000 hours watched to get to base level of monetization and time is only counted on views. I don’t get views as most of my videos are less than a minute. So time watched most of my videos doesn’t count. In addition, until you hit that 4,000 hours viewed, your videos do not get into recommended videos as much as the bigger content. That’s why WatchMojo and Looper are rammed down your throat every time you look at pop culture videos, even if you hate them and turn them off within seconds of them auto-playing.

To an extent, I suffer from the same thing on this site. My posts are so short, people are able to read the story without opening the post in Reader, social media shares or email. The whole punchlines or spooky twist is in the preview. I did a bit of testing, and by turning off preview I got another 4,000 to 8,000 views a day. All that did was push my bandwidth cost up. So I turned preview back on. I think it’s obvious looking at the likes, shares and comments, this is a really active website. But I rarely go much above 1,000 views per day due to everyone reading my posts off-site.

The difference between YouTube and my own site is, I own my own site. I’m self-hosted. Nobody can ban me randomly and I have as much control as it’s possible to get. So I’m happy to spend time building this up. I don’t think people should abandon YouTube just yet. But I do think keeping an eye on alternatives long-term is a good idea. At the very least, it can be an upload/hosting service for my videos until something better comes along. For me personally, given the issues super short form videos have, it’s not a platform I want to invest a lot of time in.

Good luck again, Peter. As if you don’t have enough on your hands already just doing your normals. We try to always make sure we open on your site- not in our email. And YouTube… yeah, they are not what they used to be. Seemingly striving hard to actively NOT be what they used to be. But we’ll keep following you!
(BTW- the last few times, your site opened in a low-res format on our machine here. Only your site, but all else seems fine on our end. Not sure if relevant.)

I know you will get through this bump in the road. I have enjoyed all you do and look forward to so much more. You are a talented master of puns! I have learned from you and I cannot wait for your next Skillshare Course and Grey Moon! I hope your house sells soon. A lot of love, hugs, and prayers for you.

The messes you are going thru will become fodder for more horrible horrors and puns. (It helps to remember we can use everything around us to create something else)
Moving is horrible and being with horrible internet is ridiculous in this day and age. (I keep thinking how thankful I am I am past the dial up of just 3 years ago!!!) Sending positive thoughts and northern blessings for good luck in all you are up to.

I’m becoming more and more frustrated with the online experience by the day, but compared to trying to share my monsters and stories through the postal service (with zines and mail art), the COST is so much lower with online services… I pay about ten bucks a month out of pocket for my site, then spend a few hours every day posting and sharing on a bunch of platforms. Lots of people see my creations, I get some feedback, and I make two or three bucks a month in “swag” sales. It’s a bit upside down, economically, but punk as heck!

Still, YouTube was one venue I’d hoped could eventually bring my monthly income from creative endeavors into the tens or even TWENTIES of dollars per month… Guess that’s not in the cards now…

Funny thing. In the introduction to the next course, I say if I didn’t doodle I’d spend my time watching TV or playing on a smartphone heh. Doodle keeps idle minds sharp I reckon.

I think the online experience in general needs to go hand in hand with real world footwork. So craft market stalls selling prints need to be a part of my business. Maybe even try a visit to a book fare? Online alone won’t cut it for me unless I pour more time and effort into it than I’d like.

Thank you for sharing this information. I did not know You Tube had changed it’s policy in such a draconian fashion. I was so incensed I made a complaint in their feedback section. Maybe everyone should do this and drive them crazy and, who knows, they might change their tune. Good luck with your move and I look forward to your future posts.

I think as online artists, we need to be ready to dodge and parry with the fast-changing internet. Like I say in the post, now I look for alternatives. If people move away from YouTube, then that may cause the change. 🙂

All the best Peter, hope your house sells soon.
I do share in your YouTube frustrations.
I have a channel that I’ve been trying to get afloat then they develop this “bright idea” to raise the hurdle… It’s unfair to anyone who has ambitions of using it as a platform.